And... Reilly

After I decided that I wanted to be more consistent in creating posts on my blog, I've not hardly blogged at all. A lot of things have happened in the past 3 months... awful things and wonderful things.

A good friend's father died quite unexpectedly. His name was Ron and he was grampa to one of Sammy's good friends, Zack. Through the years, Sam became close to Ron because Ron was always around, at all the sporting events, picking Sam up with Zack before or after practice, taking them somewhere fun, like Taco Bell. Ron was a good, sweet man, and I wish deeply that he was still here with all of us.

My brother-in-law, Bob's, father died also. His name was Roy, and Roy was another good, sweet man. Roy had been ill for quite some time, and since he was suffering so much at the end, his passing was a blessing. Or so the common opinion would go, and it makes sense. But I still wish Roy were here, too.

An aunt, Aunt Marguerite, who has been through so much lately, the past couple of years, had to have a double mastectomy. So far, she's doing pretty ok.

My Momma, who has been not feeling quite right for a couple of years, finally had heart surgery, a triple bypass. She needed it, and we could have lost her at any time. It makes me feel ill and dizzy just thinking about how close it was. And, in my Mom's usual style, she is doing so well. My Mom is the strongest and most wonderful woman I know & have ever known.

Joyce made the Dean’s List this past semester at CMU, the start of her Junior year. And she’s figured out that she may be able to graduate early, after the first semester of her Senior year. Joyce has worked so hard at her classes, taking extra during summertime. We are so proud of her. Unfortunately, the full-time job horizon looks bleak, and I worry she may have to settle for a job that sucks, until she can get one in her chosen field.

Sammy is a Freshman in high school this year, the first year our high school switched to trimesters. Sam’s getting all A’s, and working hard to do so. He’s enjoying the trimester schedule. But, like so many Michigan school districts… heck, school districts everywhere, the money isn’t there, so budget cuts are deep. Back to semesters next year, with less class options, and less teachers, less staff, less everything.

And, my best friend, Sandy, came up from Texas and surprised the heck outta me! She had a short visit, and I got to spend Saturday with her. It was awesome. Joycie & Mike made a super excellent Mexican dinner for us all. It was so good to see Sandy.

And also, back in December, our dog, Reilly, started acting oddly. No energy, and eventually no tail-wagging hardly at all. He was ill, and we thought it had to do with the surgery he had in October, and with the pain pills we kept trying to get right for him. Then on January 9th, Reilly became very ill. The symptoms he was having, with the problems he had following surgery, were disguised... Reilly died on April 13th from Addison's Disease. I don't have the words to express how much I miss him daily. I know that sounds crazy, given all the events I've described above... he was just a dog. Right?. Not to me, not to us. Reilly was part of our family. I loved him so much. And he loved us. I will miss Reilly forever.

Reilly
April 10, 2003 - January 13, 2010

Phone pics from the kids

Joycie took this photo with her phone recently. We already knew how Reilly spends his day... this just proves it. Sprawled out on Sam's queen-sized bed in the sun...



Reilly isn't always spread out like that; he spends a lot of time laying on the bed so he can look out Sam's bedroom windows down the driveway. Lovely way to spend a day.

I'm jealous.

Sammy took this photo with his phone right before we left the house one morning on the way to school/work. He didn't tell me about it or show it to me on his phone; he emailed it to me at work, and it was a pretty surprise...



I love watching the sunrise on the pond. This pic is now my laptop desktop background.

Goose egg

I mentioned recently that I found a goose egg on the side of our pond, and that Kev set up his game camera to monitor the situation. Good thing we weren't on pins and needles waiting for something exciting...

The most exciting part (not) was convincing Reilly, our dog, that it wasn't a ball... over and over and over and over...



The pair of Canada geese would visit the egg daily. They'd fly in and spend some time around the egg.





I watched them do this a few different times, and I never saw them actually touch the egg. They'd land on the pond and then swim over to, or near, the egg. Watching the pair fly in, swoop low, swing around and majestically land on the pond was awesome. When I saw them, they would then swim directly to the egg, except for one time when they swam toward it, then passed it, then back to it.

I believe they probably did this more than once per day, visiting their egg. I also believe they have a nest nearby. We hear them often, late at night or early in the mornings. It has been a puzzle to me... it had to be a mistake when she laid the egg there, like, oops, that one popped out by accident! (Maybe she bent over when she shouldn't have, like after having chili for lunch.)

But why the visits?

Anyway, the visits are over now. We finally retrieved the egg, and Sam, very interested, cracked it open last night, well away from the house. He said it didn't stink and it looked just like a regular egg, no big red spots or anything. I was tired of making sure the dogs didn't get to it, and with the days warming up, I'm pretty sure it'd be one stinky egg soon. I'm kinda surprised a crow or something didn't go for it.

Kev's game camera caught very few photos in the past 3 weeks. We're not sure why; we know there were times when the geese were definitely there at the egg, but the game camera took no photos. Maybe the lighting at the time wasn't enough, or maybe there was too much sunshine, to trigger the camera's action sensor. We got about 15 photos; half were of nothing.

A couple of the pics were kinda neat, though...

Riding with the dogs

After Kev felled the big oak last weekend, he and I took a short ride together on our 4-wheeler. We drove out back so Kev could show me where he cut down some more trees. Out back by our little pond, there are 2 clumps of witch hazel growing there. I have a fondness in my heart for those witch hazel, and Kev knows this. The past couple of years, some small poplars have begun growing up too close to the witch hazel. I've been hinting, asking and outright begging Kev to clear those away. And he did! Have I mentioned lately how much I love that man?...

On our way back to the house, I used Joycie's little Sony for another video. I am amazed at how well that little thing records. And yes, my skills are not very refined, I'm afraid. But I was riding on a 4-wheeler. Don't expect too much.

The fun part, which is also at times very irritating, is Reilly's behavior. Reilly loves, loves, LOVES a 4-wheeler ride. He likes to be right in front of it and jump and act all weird. He used to bark at it and act like he was trying to bite it, but we got him to stop that behavior. Most of the time. Usually Kev will holler at him and tell him to run on ahead, and since Kevin is the ONLY person Reilly will mind, that's what Reilly does. I asked Kev to let him be coz I wanted to record Reilly's madness so we could laugh at it later. You can also hear Barney huffing and puffing behind us. Now that he's blind, he follows the 4-wheeler right on our tail. Betty makes her way however she wishes. Now, from her you'll usually hear some major huffing and puffing... but she stayed back away too far to get it on this video. The ride was fun. Enjoy...



Kev had moved both the pickups away from the polebarn in the event the big oak wasn't convinced to fall in the direction he wished. Squash the pole barn, just don't squash the trucks! I loved his comment when we were riding along side the pond and could see both the trucks parked in the front drive... Kev said, "30 years of technology right there between those 2 trucks." I thought that was a cool observation... we love the old pickup. Kev traded in his 1999 Chevy truck for this 2008 he has now. I think Kevin really tried to love that 1999, but he just could not. Me, neither. This new one, we both love. She's a keeper.

Happy times on the bed

Yesterday afternoon, I was laying down watching the wind blow on the pond and trying to settle my mind down. I've found that, lately, working on Excel spreadsheets tends to drive me a bit nutty after a while, vertigo-wise.

I got my boy to come in a give me hugs to make me feel better. I was playing around with Joycie's little Sony camera, and so I took a bunch of photos of us. We had us some fun!...













My boy has gorgeous eyes. And great hugs.

I got Mike to come and visit with me for a while, too. And when Mike's here with us, where Mike goes, there goes Reilly. That dog loves Mike. I mean, that Reilly loves our Mikey...



















I'm getting used to Joycie's little Sony camera. My Sony has really bit the dust, and it's not so fun using it anymore. Joycie bought herself a fantastic Nikon last fall, so her Sony has just been sitting there collecting dust. It's one of those little ones that fits in your pocket. Only a 3x zoom, which is pretty much nothing. I miss the 12x. But my old Sony was about 5 megapixels, while this one is over 7. Best part, it fits in my purse and I can take it with me easily everywhere I go. I did take my old Sony just about everywhere, but it's definitely not pocket size.

I am planning to replace the old Sony with something nicer, like Joyce's Nikon. But right now, I cannot afford it. I was hoping to choose a digital camera from the selection of 30-year service award gifts from the company where I work (yes! 30 freakin' years... I tells ya... times flies when you're having fun old!). The service award gifts you can choose from get nicer and nicer as your service years progress. They're given out in 5-year increments. Usually. But... one of the cost-savings measures our company has instituted recently has been to put the service award gifts on hold. Everything we can do, as a company, to save cash and ride out this economic storm is being done. So, I can't really bitch about not getting my 30-year giftie. But I admit, I am quite, quite sad. I was so very much looking forward to a nice, new digital camera. A free, nice, new digital camera.

But playing with Joycie's little Sony is kinda fun. She is retaining ownership; I am only borrowing it... she's made sure I Understand This Completely. Resting in bed yesterday afternoon (with the vertigo thing, sometimes I just have to get horizontal...), I took about 120 photos. I know, crazy. I think that's about 10 more than Joycie has ever taken with it! She always forgets to grab her camera. She and Mike worked all through their spring break week, so they decided to head to Chicago for a couple of days on the weekend (which was a week ago)... and she forgot her nice, new camera! Mike took a couple of photos with his phone... I will share those with you soon. He has the same phone as Sam, the Voyager Titanium I think it is... and it takes a nice photo. But I've made Joycie promise to just grab her camera and take it with her everywhere she goes. She has a good eye, and I love to see the photos she takes.

And as for laying in bed and having company... eh, that's pretty common around here anymore. Our family is close. We keep pretty much nothing from each other, we share all. No topic is taboo, no worries too small, no fart too loud, no burp unnoticed, no sore shoulder not massaged, no itch not helped to scratch, no burden we can't share, no joy we don't celebrate... all together. Everywhere and anywhere. Well, it is not limitless, but ya get the drift. We communicate. We respect each other. We want to and we must... for one thing, no door inside our house has a lock on it, not even the bathrooms.

A long post, just like make-up sex

So I haven't been posting much on my blog lately. I think it's not only because I'm so swamped at work and then so tired out when I'm home, that the little free time I seem to have at home, I end up doing work at home, and then my brain is too tired to feel creative at all... so writing a post, even logging onto my home computer seems like too much work... And I enjoy this blog, so then it's just more negativity in my life. And then it seems like just one more thing on my 'to do' list. And then I feel like I miss it. And then... well, ya get the picture.

So here's a long post for today, and I promise a joke at the end. A joke! At the end! So maybe not so much like make-up sex (I hope, for your sake).

My dear, dear Sony is currently sitting in my LaSabre at a garage while my car is getting repaired... we took it in for a $400 pump thingy and it's turned into a $2,000+ whatever thingy. Shit.

We dropped the car off yesterday afternoon late, and I was home before I realized my camera was still in it. I am missing my Sony. I take it with me everywhere I go, usually. Since I've had it since May of 2006, it's basically a really old fart of a digital camera now... and she's been through some rough times. I lost the button to push to take a photo over a year ago, and handily set up a paperclip to work instead. Works fine, and cheaper than what they wanted to repair it. But this past Saturday morning, while at Sammy's last football game of the season, I dropped my Sony. From the very top of the bleachers all the way down to the bottom underneath onto pavement. So now I'm missing the wheel to change selections and the push thingy for zoom. But the stem of the wheel thingy is still in place, and I can turn that, so that's ok. And another paperclip can be utilized to zoom in and out (I used a safety pin at the game).



Seriously, is that one helluva camera or what?! Still works great. I took a ton of photos at Sammy's game... here's our Big No. 68 on the team...





And in this one, he's the one nearly horizontal, next to No. 24 on top of some opponents dressed in blue.



Go Sammy! It was an awesome game. The team they played has remained undefeated for the past 3 years we've played them and all this season... until Saturday when our boys beat 'em. Whoo hoo.

After the game, Sam and Kev left for Ann Arbor to go to the U of M and State game. They had a blast. Kev wore his Michigan garb and Sammy his State, and they watched State win. I stayed home, alone because Joycie & Mike were with Mike's family at a wedding in Kalamazoo. So I made a cake for Sammy...



Then Sunday, Kathy called me on her way home from Mt. Pleasant, heading west on a rainy, stormy cloudy day, shot with sunshine here and there. She was fortunate to see one of the most outstanding rainbows she's ever seen, vibrant colors. Plus a triple rainbow, and then further west, the vibrant rainbow from end to end, the whole arc. I told her, see that's why I take my camera with me everywhere I go! And I ran outside into the cold wet grass and out by the pond, but no rainbows to behold at our house. It was pretty, though, and windy. Sunshine came through for a little bit.



And Reilly came out to greet me...



But I could almost hear him thinking, are ye daft, girl? it's freezing out here. Right you are, old boy. In we went.

Kev bought me a present this past week, as a sweet surprise. This is my new CO2 BB gun.



Works great and I can pop those chipmunks and squirrels in the butt and they know I mean business now. I love it.

And I have a funny story with Kev... the other evening we sat down to watch a recorded episode of CSI, it was Episode 2 of Season 9, and I was reading the description about it, how a girl jumps to her death from a tall building and lands on a bus... and I said something like, well, this sounds... and before I could finish, Kev says, "flattering?"...

Well, it cracked me up.

The other day, I had this e-mail conversation with a guy I work with... something else that made me laugh...
      ____________________________________________
      From: Julie
      To: JT
      JT & A. , I need to skip today's update meeting. Sorry for the short notice. I was out sick yesterday & Tuesday, and now have some urgent catching up to do.
      Thanks,
      Julie
      ____________________________________________
      From: JT
      To: Julie
      Hi Julie - I hope you're doing okay now. Was your dementia acting up again? Ugh :(
      Try not to press yourself, k?
      I know I have a ton of things to respond to you on; just have to unbury myself from qtr end & that transfer I did for ya.
      Talk to you soon
      ____________________________________________
      From: Julie
      To: JT
      Oh, JT, you just provided me with what will likely be my only laugh of the day!!!!!!
      I have vertigo, not dementia! Though maybe dementia ain't that far away in my future.............
      I think I had a stomach flu, combined with the still present vertigo. It was yukky.
      I owe you stuff, too. Maybe we can talk one day next week.
      Have a good day!!!
      Julie
      ____________________________________________
      From: JT
      To: Julie
      Y'know, as soon as I sent that reply, I knew it was wrong - duh!
      Hee-hee; glad you're better though :)
      You have a good day too!
      ____________________________________________
      From: Julie
      To: JT
      I wonder if I could retire early if I have dementia..........
      What were we talking about?
      Who are you, again?
      Where am I?
      ____________________________________________
      From: JT
      To: Julie
      Can you hear me now?


And now for the joke I promised:
A cabbie picks up a Nun. She gets into the cab, and notices that the VERY handsome cab driver won't stop staring at her. She asks him why he is staring. He replies: 'I have a question to ask you but I don't want to offend you.' She answers, 'My son, you cannot offend me. When you're as old as I am and have been a nun as long as I have, you get a chance to see and hear just about everything. I'm sure that there's nothing you could say or ask that I would find offensive. ''Well, I've always had a fantasy to have a nun kiss me.' She responds, 'Well, let's see what we can do about that: first, you have to be single and second, you must be Catholic.' The cab driver is very excited and says, 'Yes, I'm single and Catholic!' 'OK' the nun says. 'Pull into the next alley.' The nun fulfills his fantasy, with a kiss that would make a hooker blush, But when they get back on the road, the cab driver starts crying. 'My dear child,' says the nun, 'why are you crying?' 'Forgive me but I've sinned. I lied and I must confess, I'm married and I'm Jewish. 'The nun says, 'That's OK. My name is Kevin and I'm going to a Halloween party.'

Free

I decided to take some time off from work this week. This morning I dropped Sammy off at school and headed to a local coffee shop to drink coffee and surf the 'net. I also went through a load of photos I've taken in the past month. And I found this...



Which is a photo of our ceiling that I didn't mean to take. But I like it. It was among the photos of Reilly that I did mean to take...



So this is my post of little substance. I intend to do very little substantive activity today and tomorrow.... i.e., screw it. *happy sigh*

Here is Mike.

"Here is Mike. We had a long day at the beach today."

I texted Joycie yesterday evening and asked her about my daily phone pic, as in where was it...? She sent me text & pic above of Mike. Further texting revealed they found shells, but no beach glass. Bummer. And I was right, my girl with her very light complexion found way too much sun in Florida.

Then she sent me a bonus pic...



"This is Molly, Grandpa and Grandma's dog."

With "Grandpa and Grandma" being, of course, Mike's grandparents. When Joycie texts, she does so succinctly. I'll send her a text that probably makes her scroll through 3 screens, and then I'll get a 4-word text back. We often have conversations in person like that, too...

Anyway, the above pic is not a very good pic, but you can tell Molly is a cute, little black and white dog. I'm sure Joycie bonded well with Molly for 2 reasons, first, she loves dogs, and second, Molly being black and white probably reminded her of Reilly, whom she loves, and no doubt misses...

Undone

I've been de-stitched. Finally got to see Dr. Adams Thursday afternoon last week, where he pronounced my progress as very good, and then instructed his surgical RN to remove my stitches. You may remember what they looked like, here's a link to that last photo, if not.

I was to have my stitches out 3 days prior to that at an appointment that was scheduled for Monday morning, but Dr. Adams had an emergency surgery. My second surgery took place on Thursday evening, Feb. 21st, so Monday, March 3rd, would have been 11 days from surgery... I believe it's most common to have the stitches removed within 7 to 10 days from surgery. So March 6th was 14 days from surgery... and since I heal more quickly than people typically heal, the stitches were well healed into my skin. Removing them apparently also required the removal of a good bit of flesh that was holding them in... the pain was pretty intense. And for a couple of silly reasons, I forgot to take pain meds when we left the house and didn't take any with me. So the whole ripping out the stitches thing was done without the helpful, numbing effect of pain killers. Shit.

The RN put butterfly stitches on, but they lasted about a day and a half. The thing is, my incision is like a crevice. I believe there's still some swelling in the area, it feels like it anyway. But the incision definitely is like a long indentation... like a butt crack. Sweet, huh. Back to the butt crack on my neck. I don't know if it's like this because the 2nd surgery incision was directly over the 1st incision or what. Anyway, here's what it looks like now, sans stitches. And since that photo doesn't show the crevice effect very well, here's a side view. It's itching like crazy still. The good news is, though, that I don't have to wear a dressing or bandage over it now. Relief! But isn't that big hole there at the bottom just lovely? I think I'll be ending up with some strange scars.

And speaking of scars, I expect I'll have some on my left arm from this adventure, as well... the PICC line and tubes and bandages are really doing a number on me.



Isn't that a pretty site?... The PICC line dressing gets changed once each week, and it's due for a change tomorrow, so this photo shows it at its worst. Part of the cleaning and sanitizing process of the dressing change is using that stuff that turns your skin yellow. Usually that fades, but it's still showing under the PICC dressing. And do you see around the PICC dressing the red lines where other dressings were? My skin there is so sore. Also, right where the PICC line goes into my skin/vein, there's no protection, and I keep bumping it... a slight bump on a pillow makes it hurt, so it's kind of red and bruised. And the parts of the line where everything gets hinged or hooked in, right near the bend of my elbow, gets pushed into my skin so much that it's like one big sore spot. The extension, which is the tubing that I've got attached to my arm with bandaids, is necessary so that I can hold the end of it to screw in the various IVs. I try to keep the bandaid spots varied so I'm not always bandaging the same spots... because they get raw after a while. I can't use paper tape or clear tape now, because so much of it was used on me earlier in January that I developed an allergy to it, and it makes my skin red & raw and itches like holy heck. The bandaids were such a blessing of relief.

My blood pressure has been so high the past few days that the home nursing company called and almost sent a nurse out today to check on me. I've had the flu on top on of all of this... and since it hit me late Saturday, I'm pretty sure I got it while we were out and about to Dr. Adams' office Thursday. Hit me like a ton of bricks by Sunday and I don't remember much of anything of Monday. That's what made my BP go up. That and pain. I still felt pretty awful this morning, but Kev helped...

Thank goodness for Kevin. I do not know what I would do without that man. He got me up and into the shower today and then helped me with the morning vanco, made me toast for breakfast and vanilla Activia with some of our frozen blueberries in it. We watched the 2-hour finale of October Road, and then he got my butt outside for some fresh air and a nice walk. I felt the best I have felt in days and days.

I've also made a change today in my antibiotics. I take the vancomycin twice per day, usually 7:30am and 7:30pm or so. I take the meropenem, or Invanse, once a day, and I've been taking that directly following my morning vanco. The thing is, though, that I get so sleepy afterwards, that I can't keep my eyes open and usually end up sleeping until almost noon. Shoots the whole morning. Kev and I talked about it today, and without consulting anyone, I took Kev's advice and I switched to taking the Invanse after my evening dose of vanco. I'm very sleepy as I finish this post... so it's working. Off to bed for me... I'm hoping this will be one of the last updates I post on this surgery & infection adventure of mine. I also hope I won't be such a whiny-ass... but this home-bound thing is making me crabby. Three and a half more weeks to go.

So to make up for the whining and the crabbing, here's a photo of our beautiful Reilly...